Post a Plan

Architects, Engineers, Owners, General Contractors, and Construction Managers – if you would like to solicit bids for a construction project, consider posting your plan electronically with one or more of NWIPCA’s Plan Centers .

Benefits of Posting your Plans with NWIPCA’s Plan Centers
Our Plan Centers will save you time, distribution fees, and reduce the number of sets of documents you need to produce.  But most importantly, you’ll have access to thousands of top providers; expanding your bidding reach!

• Bid Exposure – Our Plan Centers have the experience and the technology to help you get exposure to more than 6,000 contractors, subcontractors and supplier members in their pipeline.
• Printing / Copying Technology – Each Plan Center is capable of copying, scanning, and printing documents of all sizes normally encountered within the industry, including printing from magnetic media, email or FTP sites.
• Online Plan Rooms – All our Centers offer their members access to project information via the internet. Through the Plan Center web sites, plans, specifications, addenda and other pertinent information reach members very quickly.
• Control –Plan Centers can carry your projects on an open basis where any contractor, subcontractor or supplier can bid on them. Projects may also be carried privately, allowing exposure to be controlled by you.

How to Post a Plan
The following guidelines will assist you in posting a project with the Plan Centers in an effective and timely manner. We understand that some projects may require special consideration, and each Plan Center works diligently to accommodate the needs of its members.

Step One – Contact Plan Center.  
Call or email one of the Plan Centers to coordinate issuing a project. A pre-bid notice containing a description and bid date will announce your project to thousands of prospective bidders prior to issuance. Please provide a date on the availability of your documents.

Step Two – Send the Plans.
Provide Plan Centers with complete electronic files and one set of hard copy documents, including subsequent addenda and miscellaneous information.  The hard copy documents are provided for our members who do not have online access and used in the Centers for viewing of full size documents. The Plan Center will be glad to print hard copies for you at the discounted member rate if you do not wish to provide them.  

1. Ensure that electronic documents are sent in an
    organized and correctly identified manner so each
    Plan Center can easily post. 

2. Plans in TIFF format and specs in PDF format are
    the preferred formats. However, plans in PDF
    and specs in PDF (or specs in DOC format from
    MSWord) are acceptable.

3. Please do not lock any files.

Step Three – Post with All Plan Centers.
We encourage you to place your projects with as many centers as possible to reach out-of-area subs or suppliers who may want to bid on your project.  Simply request this service from your primary Plan Center and they can assist you.

Step Four – Handling Updates and Changes.
Issue all addenda, plan holder lists and/or additional information directly to all the Plan Centers who are posting your project. This will ensure timely changes posted for your project

1. Clearly identify changes to the bid date.

2. Addenda should be in a single package.
    Faxed or e-mailed addenda should contain the
    same pages as the hard copy to follow.
    Plan Centers are not staffed to compare
    faxed items with mailed items to verify sameness.

Step Five – Project Bid Completion.
If you provided hard copy plans or reimbursed the Plan Centers for printing documents they will return them to you at the conclusion of bidding.